New 119B bios

A new EL80/81 BIOS was uploaded just yesterday
http://203.67.170.61/asp/driver_dnd/e_download.asp?M_path=/Download/NB/HEL80_81/HEL80/BIOS

However, the zip file does not include the usual change log file to see what's new
Does anyone know about this?


EDIT: Ahh.. and the zip file seems to be password-protected :-(

 

119B? I just found 118B and installed it over the weekend =P

No change notes were in it either. Something I've noticed, which may or not be BIOS related, but it's been a while since my two user programmable keys have worked (not a show-stopper). I'm just going to blame windows quirks on this though... and in no manner am I reformatting just to get two rarely used buttons to go I think the last BIOS I had that the keys worked was before the Vista changes went in..

Maybe they goofed? I'm looking at the bizcom site where alot of people get their downloads from http://www.bizcom-us.com/support/TechSupportDriversDownloadPage.htm#EL80 and it seems that 118 was just released to them...

 

what is the point of updating bios, should i do it?

 

Unless you're experiencing problems with your computer that the BIOS upgrade notes address, you shouldn't upgrade. I'm sticking with 112A because that's the last release before the Vista fixes, which also killed my function keys too, pyro. It's not just you. They changed some ACPI info somewhere, and it broke a lot of things.

 

I'm sure they made trade-offs. Atleast you were able to confirm my suspicion's on the Vista changed bios.

I'm sticking with the newer versions though because I like the ability to control my screen brightness with RMclock.. One click to go from performance on demand min brightness to maximum performance and brightness while gaming.

Looks like I'll take the CSwalker application off my machine then, one less thing sitting in memory twiddling fingers.

 

well,

I have now 118b and I must say that when the brightness keys stopped working in (Arch)Linux after upgrading from 114, they did work in Ubuntu with acpi_asus and backlight modules.

Can't find them on Arch tho, so it's a no go. But they are confirmed to work.

Also, the media keys on top next to the power button all generate some info, despite the mail and browser keys, I guess that's not so bad.

Had this new bios fixed these issues, I'd get it.

Oh and if it had fixed my atheros minipci-e card to flash the wifi led that would be awesome too - I don't mind it the way it is now, but I wouldn't mind it flashing either, I guess.

Cheers,

//m.

 

imachine, 118b fixed bios bug message on linux boot?, thanks

 

Dunno if it's fixed anything, rather broke the brightness keys working during bootup and later on stock ARCH kernel (2.6.20 and up)...

What erorr message are you referring to anyway?

 

I flashed with the 118B a couple of weeks ago (up from 110B!). Then I installed Kubuntu 7.04, and it still gave me BIOS error messages something about some PCI address that I never wrote down. I had read about the brightness control problems but the *only* problem I saw was a few days ago while *in Windows* the Fn-F4/F5 (brightness) wasn't working.
So I suspended the machine, waited a couple of seconds and resumed it, and that fixed it.
Never saw that problem again, either under Kubuntu or Windows or doing the booting phase. Last night I installed the latest PCLinuxOS 2007 which I'm liking a lot (I'm more used to the RedHat/Mandriva world with respect to where the config files are, etc).
All the usual Linux "problems" persist (no thermal zone, no webcam....) but I'm hoping I can fix that with the DSDT trick for ACPI and the spca5xx dirvers for webcam. I didn't check the brightness though, but I think it should work. AH! And I didn't get the BIOS PCI error with PCLinuxOS

 

That's strange that your brightness keys don't work in windows, because mine do and I'm using 118B.

 

This message:
[17179570.100000] PCI: BIOS BUG #81[00000000] found
[17179570.204000] PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 7 of bridge 0000:00:1c.3
[17179570.204000] PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 8 of bridge 0000:00:1c.3

barspi said he didn't get it on PCLinuxOS, so it will be a kubuntu's problem I think...

 

oh I get those too with stock arch kernel and with 2.6.20-ck patchset kernel.

Can't say it makes much a difference... oh and backlight.ko+acpi_asus.ko does not fix the backlight on archlinux... works fine in ubuntu 7.04... weird.

 

You may want to try the kernel options of "pci=direct" or "pci=nobios" and see if they fix the error. I'll check tonight, I just found that with some googling.

 

Yeah, those look like the errors I was talking about. I first saw them last year when trying Mandriva 2007 (kernel 2.6.17), but only *sometimes*. (Bios 110B)
It happened with Kubuntu 7.04 (kernel 2.6.20 ???) last month *every time* (BIOS 118B)
I haven't seen it with PCLOS 2007 (kernels 2.6.18, 2.6.20).

At first those messages scared me but they made no difference anyway so I ignored them.

 

I've seen those and grown to ignore them =P

 

I'm in the process of updating the bios thread and testing the newest ones 1.18 and 1.19 myself.
Has anyone tried 1.19, it seems a bit iffy, it is the only .ROM with a different size than the others.

 

I'm running 119 right now and haven't noticed any change.. All you need is flash16.exe and *.rom in order to flash.. everything else is optional.

 

Is there any changelog for 119?

 

Hmm I get a platform signature error with 119B.

Edit: Ok, already solved, you had to use the .WPH file.

 

119B is Chinese for "mystery surprise BIOS"
burn it and good things will happen to you and you computer! hahaha

who knows... I'm not burning without a changelog
anyone has access to Compal's engineers to tell them about their omission?

 

Nope.. but I was hoping it fixed my two user programmable keys(no)